Love's Philosophy
by IronCrest
Summary: Kim's had a difficult life, that is, until a certain werewolves steps in to change that. My version of Kim and Jared's romance from start to finish.
1. Chapter 1

I close my eyes for a bit and just listen to myself play. I know that my shoulder is tense and that I am clenching my jaw too hard, but I want to finish the vocalise. It sounds so beautiful resonating inside the practice room that my mind forces my fingers to continue on despite their soreness. I try to focus on keeping my bow-stroke as long and even as I can and my tone rich and dark. Surprisingly it works, and it no longer hurts to play. The piece finishes easily and I'm left in a silence, staring at a photograph Rachmaninoff's face copied onto the cover of my sheet music.

I can't help but feel a wave of frustration pass through my body as I look at his eyes. He would have been happier if Itzack Perlman or Jascha Heifetz had just played it instead of me. I had just killed it, treated it as if it were a technical exercise or a block of wood that I was drilling right through. Why couldn't I just play it right? I'd practiced it for weeks and it didn't sound nearly as good as I had wanted it to be. Rachmaninoff hadn't written this piece for someone like me. It was meant to be played by someone who was much better, someone who was worth it. Slowly, tears well up into my eyes, and I try to suppress them.

It's no use crying, Kim. It won't make you any better, I tell myself, Just put it away play it again later. And when this happens again tomorrow, the next day, and the day after, you can do the same thing. Maybe someday, someone will just put your damn violin with you in your coffin.

Just as I finish packing my things, the orchestra director's head pops up just outside the window of my practice room. Normally, she acted the part of a stern-faced disciplinarian with a sardonic sense of humor but now standing in front of me as I open the door, she is smiling.

When I greet her after I step outside, she gestures to a stack of papers in her hand and says, "I was just coming from the copy room, Kim, and it sounds great. Honestly, I think you're the only one who really has a shot in next month's competition."

I thank her politely, hoping that the conversation would end there so I could get back to class, but she continues on.

"I was actually thinking you might be interested in a concerto contest coming up this spring. I walked in this morning to find a flyer sitting on my desk. It's the International Young Musician Competition or something along those lines. This year they're holding it in Italy. I really think it would be a great opportunity for you."

I look at her in surprise. I'd known about this competition from the moment I'd first started playing the violin. Yo-Yo Ma had won first prize. Joshua Bell, Kiri Te Kanawa, and Maurizo Pollini had all participated. My heart pounds loudly in my chest, but I force myself to think rationally. Italy? It would be too far and too expensive. There was no possible way that it would be feasible.

"That sounds amazing," I tell her earnestly, "But, I really don't think I have that kind of money."

She gives me a crooked smile. "If your audition tape qualifies for the contest, Kim, everything will be covered. So what do you say?"

"Yes, of course!" I nearly exclaim, unable to contain my excitement. She laughs at this and clasps her hands together as the bell rings.

"Well, stop by my office some time after school this week and pick up the forms." I nod eagerly and quickly head to my next class. I try not to look stupidly happy as I walk down the crowded hallways, but it's hard. To me it seems like sheer luck, but it easily could have been otherwise.

A tall girl with long, straight hair nudges me as I'm about to enter the classroom.

"Kim!" she begins, holding open the door for me, "You weren't at lunch today _again_. I beginning to feel like you're avoiding me."

I try to muster up the most exasperated look that I can, but no amount of bad acting can hide my transparency, especially from someone whom I'd known since elementary school.

"Well, you clearly make it impossible Meg" I retort back playfully as I roll my eyes. I make my to a desk in the front corner and sit down. She seems to understand something from my tone as she plops down beside me and turns to me with an expression, this time, of genuine exasperation.

"Kim, there is something called "having a life", and you clearly don't understand that concept. Tonight, you are coming with me to the bonfire. You can't just hide behind your violin all the time. "

I think I've always tried to be a tolerant, level-headed person, someone who can handle criticism when it gets thrown at me. My teachers have marked up essays, judges have given me stapled sheets of comments, and my father has always been harsh in his judgements. Throughout my life, I've always been able to take it- because I know that I can try, that I can make myself better. But now, when my best friend tells me stop doing what holds me together, I can't help but fume.

"Why can't I? What can partying or screwing someone possibly do for me? It's not like I want to just throw my life away."

She gives me a long look and her eyes look hurt as she says slowly, "I just think you're a bit uptight. You should really loosen up a little."

I suddenly feel ashamed of myself for losing my temper. I feel like a caged animal, rendered stupid with blind emotion. Meg really hadn't meant any harm. She just couldn't understand. She didn't know about me because life was happier than mine. She had a family, an established future for herself. She had nothing to work for. I, on the other hand, have a dead mother and an alcoholic father. Things don't come as easily for me, but I can't live hating the world.

I sigh and give her small smile. "Yeah, you're right, but not today okay. My dad wants me home right away."

She rolls her eyes just as our history teacher starts talking at the front of the room.


	2. Chapter 2

**For the reader: I know a lot of you are eager to get onto the Jared part of the story and might feel as if my story is dragging, but I really do want to establish Kim's character as well as the story's basic setting and background before I delve deeper. So, please, offer as much feedback as you can and hopefully, keep reading!**

I really enjoy walking home from school, especially when the weather is this nice. In La Push, sunny days are rarities that are always cherished. My load was a lot lighter than usual without my umbrella and galoshes stuffed into my backpack, and I had finally been able to wear one of my summer dresses.

Everyone's outside. Kids play on the street while parents set up for barbecues out in their backyards. A few people jog around the neighborhood or walk dogs. I smile at them as they pass by me.

As I walk by the beach, I notice that a lot of people from school are already there, playing beach volleyball or swimming in the ocean. The elders are congregated in the center, arranging the bonfire and selecting which of the legends they will tell tonight. I spot Meg, leaning on some ropes that lined the dock , flirting with some guys a little far off from them. For a moment I consider just dropping my bag off at home and joining her, but I know that I shouldn't. Socializing was never my forte. I wouldn't be able to get through a conversation without blushing or leaving an awkward silence. I couldn't flirt nor was I daring or outgoing enough. Most likely, I'd end up walking alongside the shore and watch everyone else have fun, watch them look as if they conquered the world, act as if they hadn't any problems or flaws to think about.

I let a frustrated sigh, but when I reach to my front door, it becomes one of apprehension. I don't know whether my father would be home. It had been three weeks since I had last seen him, the longest of his many disappearances since my mother's death. Every so often he would show up at the house drunk and disillusioned, carousing with a bar-mate and walking in circles around the yard. He always came at night, so the noise would wake me almost immediately and I could go down and bring him in. Stepping into the bleak, empty house, I hope that today would be one of those days, as scary as they were, so that I could feel better knowing that he was okay.

I soon find myself in my room flipping restlessly through my mother's battered copy of Catch-22. Normally, reading it would have made me laugh and feel better, but today I was so worried about my father that I couldn't concentrate. Who knows what sort of trouble he could have gotten into. His occasional presence and feigned sobriety was the only thing keeping us together, keeping me out of a foster home. For now we had enough of our old savings to live off of until I'd turn eighteen next year and get access to my trust fund. Money wasn't the problem. It was just everything else.

My eyes catch glimpse of a picture sitting atop the dresser and a pang of grief hits my chest. It was of my mother and I, taken on my thirteenth birthday. She had taken me to Portland for the day, and I had had so much fun. Before dinner, we had gone to see Coppélia performed by the Portland Ballet Company and afterwards, we'd sat at a small café drinking hot chocolate and eating sandwiches. It was there that some street photographer had found us and asked if we wanted our picture to be taken.

But that all seemed like the distant past, before she started throwing up in the mornings and staying in her bedroom all day. It was before the doctors had located a malignant tumor irresponsive to chemo and was given less than a couple of weeks to live. It was before she had died by the roadside, her body mangled and mutilated, when it was supposed to have happened in a hospital bed. My father had come home almost delusional.

I start to cry. But it's not one of those bawling sobs that people let out in movies. The tears fall silently, and my lungs choke on air. I pull a pillow into my chest and buy my face in it, thinking of just how quickly my life had changed, how it had shattered into pieces like a vase knocked over by a careless child. I truly had been left alone. Now I have nothing to love, to keep company, or to live for.

A knock suddenly sounds at the door, forcing me to regain my composure and go answer the door. I close my eyes and tilt my head back slightly as an effort to quell my tears. Someone knocks again, this time harder, My eyes fly open. I check to make sure the red blotches on my face aren't noticeable and fly downstairs to get the door.

It's the sour-faced woman who works at the bar that my father frequents. As she examines me for a short moment, I notice her car parked on my driveway.

"It's been two weeks," she tells me outright, her eyes shifting past me and into the house. I give her a confused look and her eyes come back to mine.

"They told me to come and tell you that it's been two weeks since your dad's come and paid his bill."


	3. Chapter 3

"_What?"_ My heart drops to my stomach, and I start to tremble. It almost begins to seem that the more I think of everything that could go wrong, the more often it actually happens. Was it all really just luck, dice that the universe plays? Or was it something greater, something that metes out punishments to anyone who deserves them?

I shake my head and force myself to stay with reality. "Do you mean he hasn't shown up at all?" I ask, trying to keep the frantic look out of my eyes.

"I've already said that, Hon," she replies, twirling a piece of her poorly-done extensions with a manicured finger. Looking blankly at me, her eyes are heavy with mascara and eye liner. Her expression appears indifferent and almost bored. I can picture her in the bar, serving drunkards, selling herself to lechers, and growing more contemptible day after day. I shiver. If worst came to worst, would I ever end up like her?

"Who was he with the last time you saw him?" I press on, hoping to get some sort of an inkling of where he might have ended up. He seemed to always be with one of his bar-mates.

"I'd be the last person to remember. Go down there yourself and ask around before my boss decides to come here himself. If you want, I'll give you a ride before my next shift."

I nod at her gratefully and shove the house keys in my pocket before slamming the front door behind me. My father had taken our Chevy and our spare car was a wreck, with only a few thousand miles left to go and a obnoxious, sputtering motor.

She drops me off at the front of the bar and pulls of a bag of clothes from her glove compartment. I quickly turn around and enter the building before a pang of pity envelops me.

The place is really alive. It's lit in a way that gives it a slightly hippie, beatnik artist club feel, with warm purples and blues mixing with the flat yellow of incandescent light bulbs. A few tables sit in the center of the place, filled with people drinking, chatting, or playing cards. There's a dance floor on the end, and the music is upbeat and kind of catchy. I'm definitely surprised. The atmosphere definitely defied my expectations. It was much less vulgar and base than I had braced myself to face.

I start to look for one of my father's friends but instead, out of the corner of my eye, I notice a bartender walking in my direction and realize that I don't have an ID of any sort to justify my presence. My eyes catch glimpse of a hallway extending inside from a corner close to me, and I find myself walking through it, safe from any unwanted people.

I was wrong. I was really wrong. I wasn't in a bar. I was in two bars, and I had definitely needed to brace myself for this one. The floors were filthy. Booze and dirt were spilt and stained upon every crack of the tile. Articles of clothing lay strewn in corners and covered in grime as a few decrepit men actually started smelling them and putting them into knapsacks. On the opposite side of that wall, a man has pushed a woman up against a counter and proceeds to grope her, and right beside them, a group of people fumble with pills and powders, passing them around and exchanging cash.

I stay frozen for a few moments, much too overwhelmed to actually do anything. But when one of the men at the center table sees me and gives me a toothy smile, I walk as fast as I can back through the hallway leading to the other barroom. I fight back tears as well as the enormous pit of darkness ready to suck me in.

It all comes crashing down onto me. I really am helpless. I couldn't fool myself any longer. The grades, the violin, the excuses, Meg, they were all lies, all only fooling myself. I had absolutely nothing under control. I was futilely scrambling to put together pieces of of a life that just toppled over a few seconds after it had been set right. My father had been reduced to this. I had never thought it to be this bad. My final fear of losing him had just been thrown back into my face. It had already happened a long time ago.

I bump into someone and glass shatters onto the floor. I whip around, ready to pour out a profuse apology, but instead, I find myself face to face with my violin teacher.

"Kim?" he says in disbelief. He's young, in his early twenties or somewhere around there. They had called him a child prodigy, a rising musician back where he grew up in London but a couple of years ago, he had given up the pursuit of fame so that he could "live his life".

"Oh," I stammer, "I-I didn't know that you came here." I mentally slap myself as soon as the worlds leave my mouth. That was pretty much the stupidest thing that I could have said.

"Often, actually. I didn't know that_you_ came here." The noise around me seems muted to my ear as I fumble through my mind for an excuse that didn't involve my father. Just as I am about to account a far-fetched story involving a cousin and plane tickets, I notice that he is laughing.

I crack him a tentative smile. Our relationship at the studio had always been strictly that of a teacher and a pupil despite the small age difference. Anything other than that had been curtailed after a few moments. But now, I was lost.


End file.
